Brighton
by shortlysweet
Summary: Hermione is alone after the war, after everyone moves on and her perfect life shatters. She writes her memoirs as she travels to the sea at Brighton every weekend. H/HR, slightly ridiculous ending. :) I don't own Harry Potter!
1. By The Sea

She pulled out a small, fat notebook that she always kept with her during those long train rides every Saturday down to Brighton. She needed to feel the sun, smell the salt air, feel like she could be a part of that force of nature so much larger than her own small life.

Sighing, she reached into her messenger bag for a pen and sat with her legs taking up two seats. It was October now, and there were always few people on the train to Brighton. She shivered a little and pulled her coat tighter, feeling words forming into her mind, and turned the notebook to a blank page towards the back, finally putting the pen to paper.

_"They always thought she was some force to be reckoned with, not the lonely girl that she really is. Maybe she's lonely because they thought that, she wouldn't know. What she does know is this: never let yourself need anyone." _

Hermione thought for a second about how they'd gotten where they were. Ron was a quidditch star, finally achieving the fame of his dreams and dating a girl that Hermione couldn't remember. Harry was a liaison for the International Magical Sports office and the Ministry; after he'd stopped playing seeker for Fulham thanks to that third broken neck and almost-death, he settled in for a slightly quieter life as Ron's flatmate, and spent most of his time at Quidditch matches. Neither Ron nor Harry were around much, and so she had tried to let those friendships go as she went to muggle university.

_"But this isn't a story to be pitied. Magic's latest and greatest heroine isn't infallible. She makes choices just like everyone else; choices that can bend and break a witch if she wasn't careful. But she is always careful." _

Muggle university wasn't kind to the bright student, though. She had no idea of the things muggles were studying these days - graphic design? molecular chemistry? - it was a sort of other world that she had forgot even existed. She dropped out of class and spent enough time working as a small time local magazine copy editor to pay the bills, and all her other time wandering Britain.

_"She knows that war isn't kind to those who can remember. She remembers the ache of hunger, the unsettling fear that always crept in, and the bitter cold as rushing air whooshed through the tiny tent where she spent all the life she had, given to Harry so he could save them. Save them from certain death, even if the after was a dull reality. " _

And now, she was on this train. Most would simply apparate, but it was part of the appeal to spend the solitude simply scribbling notes of her memoirs. No one expected a thing from the curly haired woman staring into space on a train; she wasn't approached, she always had breathing room, even on the crowded summer trains. She became, again, a part of something bigger than herself. Hermione wondered if this was how she would spend the rest of her days.

As the train jerked to a stop, she tucked the notebook back in and headed for her usual stop, a seawall perfect to finish the memories started on the train. Climbing over the rocks was about as rough as it got for Hermione these days, and secretly, she missed that sense of adventure, even if it was always coupled with fear for her life.

_"What is life, though? A state of not being dead. Living and life are very different; one can be alive without ever having lived a worthy life. Who's to judge what's worthy, she gets that question often in her thoughts." _

"Hermione." She hears her name and whips her head around, hiding the notebook, her prized life, in her inside coat pocket. It's Harry, looking out over the ocean, hands in his pockets. "Did you mean to find me?" He doesn't look at her.

Staring hard at his face, she speaks. "Um, Harry, I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. This is my spot. Every Saturday for the last two years." She leaves the words unsaid: ever since you and Ron quit needing me.

Finally, he looks at her, incredulity on his face. "Oh. It's not Sunday, then." He looks down at the rocks, kicking a small shell that had landed on the sea wall. "I must have gotten confused. Sorry." As he starts to walk away, Hermione weighs the idea of giving up a Saturday to talk to him, or having her weekly dose of peace. Harry still outweighs everything.

"No, don't. I'm curious, though; you said you come here every Sunday. That's quite a coincidence. How could you have known about my spot?" She says it possessively, as if his presence, though never known until now, is still an intrusion.

He shrugs, simply. "Honestly, Hermione, I have no idea how I got here. It happened about two years ago, too, but I never told anyone. I'm guessing you didn't, either." Harry extends his hand, hoping she'll take it. "Coffee?"

Something in the way he seems sad yet resigned, she knows he doesn't need her. He's extending kindness, not a question of help. He seems to want to help her.

"No thanks, Harry, must be getting home. I-I have things to attend to." Brushing past him on the rocky wall, she makes her way to an alley and apparates home. Pulling her coat off, she takes out the notebook once more.

_"Simply being a hermit, pushing through existence unneeded, unloved, is just not being dead. And the worst part is, those fated friends, those ones who so desperately needed her, are the ones who no longer have need, have love, have time for her. She is too famous to make real friends, and too unnecessary to the old ones. They all call him the Boy Who Lived; it only seems fitting to be the girl who's given up her chance at life to save the wizarding world and only get the credit that she survived the final battle. No one could have done much more than she, by his side to keep him alive, to keep him going, and she was discarded like Voldemort." _

Putting the notebook on the shelf, she makes a cup of tea and goes back to life as Hermione the hermit, alone. She tries not to think of Harry and thus begins another seven days of waiting for her next chance to breathe, to feel alive by the sea.


	2. She Bends and Breaks

Every Saturday, the same routine. The next week she pulls on wellies, afraid of getting her feet wet and catching cold, and climbs aboard the same train, the 10:32 to Brighton, and reaches for her notebook.

_"It's haunting to just exist. She's treated as a ghost when she dares go out into the wizarding world, for people have heard the rumors. They think she must think herself better than them, she must just be waiting for a grand parade that will never come, isn't a thank you, an award, a mention in the Prophet good enough? None of those things were her undoing, though far be it from her to feel slighted. She never left, she was never anything but loyal to a wizard who needed her only until he was again the hero." _

A baby cries as she stops to ponder that idea. She has never, and would never, think that Harry was using her. She knows better than that; the life she gave up, the one where Hermione was normal and had normal friends and just simply cared, was for everyone. For the world. Except in her mind, it was never for anyone but him. She hates that she still loves him so.

The train gets out and she walks on to her spot, through the October mist that makes it impossible to see anything but water. Getting to the end of the wall, she sees in an instant. Harry is sitting there, waiting.

She opens her mouth to speak, but he takes her off guard. "Sorry. I know it's your day. I have a game tomorrow. I'll just slide down this way." She wants to tell him it doesn't work like that, that he's taking the one thing she had left, but this broken Hermione can't form the words. She waits for her voice to steady, staring out at gray choppy seas that couldn't care less about feelings, about thoughts, about anything but the steady mist and bitter cold that was slowly enveloping her. It didn't take long to feel like she was a part of the sea; the gray, the nothing was a perfect echo of her mind.

He continued speaking, surprising her. "Just one more thing, and I promise I'm going to shut up, I'm going to leave you to.." he gestures wildly around, "I just have to say, sometimes it feels nice to be a part of something bigger."

She looks over at him with disdain. He has a fulfilling job, he got to keep his friend, he isn't alone in a tiny apartment with a mother who sends letters begging to know why she threw her life away. He doesn't live in a two room cottage held together by magic, slowly rotting away like Hermione herself. But still, she can't find the words. She will always respect that Harry needs this, maybe even more than her.

She slowly gets up and returns to the train station, climbing aboard the muggle mass of gray steel and hard plastic seats. She can see the sea wall in the distance, but Harry has vanished. And so she sits, damp with the cold mist, and writes.

_"The funny thing about the hero is that she could never say no. He wasn't her hero. He was simply, uncreatively, amazingly just 'him', just a guy living a life that she would never seem to fit into again. It wasn't vanity or selfishness that kept her away, it was the feeling in her heart. Unrequited love is a cruel fate, but not being needed? She was convinced that the two together was a fate worse than death. In all her musings, she wondered if she ever would know that she did the right thing. For the world? Yes, always. But for herself, no; she wanted it for him, for the world, more than herself. And so she lived." _

Hermione didn't go back to Brighton again.


	3. Leaving Them Behind

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

1. I don't own Harry Potter

2. Somewhere in this story, and I am so tired I can't find it right now, it says apartment in one paragraph, cottage in the next. Pretend it just says cottage the whole way. Sorry!

* * *

Four weeks after her last trip, she receives an owl post.

"I need your help."

She knows who, but not why. Still, she can never deny him what he needs. She pulls on a heavy coat and leather boots over her jeans, hoping they're warm enough for her snowy walk through London. Apparating to the city's edge, she tucks her wand into her pocket and slowly makes her way to the flat that Harry and Ron share.

Knock, knock. Hermione is taken aback at how loud everything sounds, but maybe it's just her heart pounding in her ears. Ron answers the door.

"Hermy! Long time no see. Come in, come in, it's colder than Merlin's beard out there!" She mutters a thanks as she shuffles in, trying to get the snow off of her boots. He roughly pats her on the back. They stay standing in the foyer of the warm flat, and Hermione wonders why her shoes feel two sizes two tight. She shouldn't be here.

Ron speaks up again. "So why haven't you said much to me lately?"

She wonders how he can look so genuine. "Well, Ron, I've been sending you letters regularly." Did that come out colder than she meant it to? Oh well, it's been said now.

"Oh. Herms. They're probably all in with the fan mail. I just never get to sorting that all out." He laughs and beckons her to follow him. "Just drop by, eh?"

Harry is staring off into space as she enters their sitting room. Ron abruptly pulls him out of his dazed look. "Oy! Harry! Herms came to see us."

He shoots Ron a look. "No, I'm pretty sure she came to see me. I need her help." Before Ron can say anything, Harry pulls Hermione into his room.

She glances around as he makes the bed. It's plain, but clean. She wills herself not to think of what it would have been like to spend just one night here. No, she gave that up for the greater good. That's what Dumbledore asked, and if it made Harry happy, she'd do it all over again.

"I need… I need help with an engagement ring." Harry puts no pretense on what he says, and she knows this is it. No going back from here, this must be the last thing she ever agrees to help him with.

"All right, Harry. If you're asking for my opinion, I think a classic solitaire would probably suit any beautiful wife of Harry Potter. Diamond goes with anything." Hermione summons the last smile she's ever going to give him, and gives him one last hug, just for good measure. This is her goodbye, for the greater good. This is her giving up the very last thing that keeps her on this planet.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I was in the middle of editing when you sent your letter. I have to go." Hermione breezed out of his room, pulled on her coat and apparated straight from the foyer.

_"She didn't wish him good luck. She didn't even bid him goodbye; though, it was that serious. It wasn't joy, though she wished dearly that her friend would feel joy, feel all those happy emotions that he deserved. She simply left, a hug as her last goodbye, and hoped like hell that everything she did for the greater good would be worth it." _

Hermione tucked her notebook away and decided to Floo to Ron and Harry's apartment. She knew that Harry was out, thanks to the Prophet's championship coverage, and that Ron's team had been out in the quarterfinals.

"Ron, are you decent?" She popped her head into the flames, hoping she wouldn't see anything.

"Herms! Of course." She stepped out of the fireplace and he offered a hand to her to steady; Floo trips still were not Hermione's thing.

"Hermione, I'm glad you're here." Ron tapped the seat next to him on the sofa, and continued. "Harry seems to have this crazy notion in his head that you want nothing to do with him, and I've been telling him otherwise for ages! Load of bloody nonsense."

She couldn't bring herself to look at Ron. "Actually, Ron, that's what I'm here about. I've been doing so much for him over the years, and you know, I think I just need to take time to be me, and not worry about what kind of friend I am to Harry."

"Hermione, don't you need us anymore?" Ron asked, a look of sadness and fear obvious on his freckled features. "Don't we matter?"

She sighs, and looks away, trying to buy time. How do you tell someone that they've always been the ones who matter? "I…"

"If you're going to say that you don't need us, then I think you're wrong." He pulls Hermione into a hug as she shrugs him off.

"Maybe you don't need me anymore. Maybe that's the real problem. Even if I needed you, you'd never need me. Harry is going to go have his happily ever after and even you seem jovial and loving life. Meanwhile, mine is falling apart, because there is literally nothing left to do in my life. I proved nothing about myself in battle other than that I'm willing to sacrifice for everyone else on this bloody earth, even if they don't give two knuts about me when I pass them in the street." She lowered her voice. "People think I'm a bloody stuck up joke and… " She heard a door creak open, mid-sentence, and saw Harry staring at her from his room.

"I have to go. Please excuse me for bothering you tonight, Ron." She ran out onto the street, down to the coffee bar on the next block. Drowning her sorrows in caffeine might be better respite than alcohol, she reasoned, and ordered a venti americano.

She pulled out her notebook, the cover looking the worse for wear, and began to scribble furiously.


	4. Happy Ending

**One year later. **

_"They thought they were saving me, those two. They really believed it, because I let them think for so long that steel-plated, emotionally dead Hermione needed nothing, no one. That emotional space I took, just in case the Dark Lord succeeded and killed Harry, leaving me alive and tormented, was the very space that did us in. We weren't the trio; we were the duo and Hermione, cleaning up the world's messes in the form of a very evil man who took the idea of a normal life, a happy life, away from the three of us in different ways. I watch them, even now, hoping for the best, as I know that my input is no longer needed. I respect them, I even love them, but I am no longer a part of them. Instead, I find my path one of solitude and hope that I will someday mean as much to me as they to them. Is this the end of Hermione's story? Not likely, as life continues. But nothing I live through could ever mean as much as this story, these memories. Scrawled into a notebook for years, they have been my lifeline. Now, they are my catharsis as I leave that life behind."_

Hermione, the 'boring' editor, was published by a small wizard press. As she was the only of the golden trio to write memoirs, the book was an instant success; people now gave her pity looks on the street instead of the reproachful stares. She didn't know if this was a benefit or not.

On its second week in the number one spot, she had a visitor, wholly unexpected. Harry simply appeared in her living room one night, sitting in a chair. She acted as if she did not notice his arrival until he spoke.

"Did you really think I wouldn't need you anymore?" He spoke in little more than a whisper at first. Hermione could feel the tension in the room grow even more, if that were possible, but Harry wasn't done yet. "You think you mean that little to anyone?"

She scoffed. "Ron never seemed to care what I did either way, after he was done with me as his fling of the month, and you certainly never showed that you cared." She turned to wash some dishes, hoping he would get the point.

"And you thought this book was such a good idea?"

"Maybe I thought it was the only way to say goodbye."

His voice rose. "What the hell does that even mean, Hermione? I'm here now, aren't I? Some goodbye." He stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. "Unless you want to tell me something? What is this about, Brighton? I know you don't go back anymore."

She put her head into her hands, frustrated, and her voice came out in little more than a whisper. "No, Harry, it was never about Brighton. Look, go back to your marriage, your life, your whatever-it-is that doesn't need me."

"Not until you talk to me."

She tilts her head in thought. "If I tell you, you will leave as soon as I say I'm done?"

He clearly thought deeply about this, but after a few seconds, the words leave his lips "Yes, I will."

Here goes nothing, she thought.

"I love you. I have always always loved you. You do not love me. You needed me. I stood by you, loyal, and asked nothing more than to help you save the wizarding world. Now, I got what I asked for and I wrote my thoughts on that on my trips to Brighton. It's a release. I'm letting it all go and settling into my new life. I'm not sullen, I'm not sad, I am resigned but I am living that life that I worked so hard to save. So that's my story, Harry, take it or leave it, but you need to leave now. I'm done."

He looked at her, a strange look, and vanished with barely a pop. Hermione had held it in for so long that she was ready, this time, to grieve Harry.

She burst into tears and no sooner had her eyes gone watery than a scroll shot out of the fireplace. With some resignation, she opened it.

It said, simply, "Meet me in Brighton. It's the last thing I need, Hermione." Sighing, she grabbed her coat.

* * *

She apparated to the train station, so she could walk slowly. What would she say? She knew he'd likely be angry, frustrated, but want to sit in silence. She had to make her words count, make him understand that this is the way it had to be. She loved him so much that she needed to be needed, and now that she wasn't, she couldn't stay.

She got to her spot on the rocks. No sign of Harry, nor any indication that anyone was around. Cloudy, gray, misty weather, as usual for November. She tugged her wool coat closer, and glanced around. No muggles. She cast a warming charm, if only to keep her hands from going numb.

She glanced down at the beach below her by several hundred meters. There, a small dark figure, and in what had to be thousands of candles or fairy lights, a message.

Marry Me.

She laughed and muttered to herself. "Ha, some lucky girl."

He snuck up behind her, wrapping her with a blanket. "My lucky girl."

She stared at him. She knew he couldn't love her, not after the distance, the time, the book. She smiled sadly. "Harry, I don't need this right now. I wish you luck, but I need to be away from you." He had a strange look on his face.

"Who do you think this has always been for? If only you had just come back, we wouldn't have had to wait."

She looked down at her hand. A ring. She was needed for something even bigger than she'd ever imagined.

_A life better than death. _


End file.
